Economist cautions AI job-loss studies may overstate harm due to occupation vs. person mismatch
paulnovosad · x · 2026-09-16
Economist Paul Novosad, discussing the Brynjolfsson et al. 2026 paper on AI exposure and employment, urges distinguishing occupations from people:
- If Johnny is hired as Account Manager instead of Data Analyst, statistics show "catastrophic job losses in AI-exposed sectors" while Johnny is fine.
- Young people entering new jobs is the best mode of economic change.
- He notes this is a widespread issue in diff-in-diff literature—implicit assumptions about which group moves normally—the "China shock" papers share the flaw.
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